Month: February 2014

Why Are Young Americans Leaving the Church? Irrelevance?

Part 2 of 4

We have seen that the three most common excuses given for what some say is an en masse departure of American youth from the church, are: (a) the church is intolerant, (b) the message of the church is irrelevant, and (c) too many church-going adults are hypocrites.

Having addressed the “intolerant†question in Part One, we turn now to the “irrelevance†question.

Patently, many representatives of Christianity have, in spectacular fashion, made God and the Bible irrelevant. That fact is a no-brainer and is particularly comforting for those searching for such geniuses. I say “geniuses†because it is truly a tour de force that a human being could be capable of taking anything God said and make it appear irrelevant. Such a person is a prodigy. A sick prodigy, but a prodigy nonetheless.

I make two essential observations here. The first is this, which really says it all. It covers the entire waterfront: “I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning, consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without difficulty to find satisfying reasons for the assumption. Most ignorance is (a man’s) vincible will that decides how and upon what subjects in the (world) generally (make sense) because for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless….We objected to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.†That is from Aldous Huxley (Ends and Means, 270-274), and such statements from honest people could be multiplied endlessly. The celebrated psychologist William James put it this way: “If your heart does not want a world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never make you believe in one.†(The Will to Believe, 23) The question of moral relevance of any act is always, at base, a moral issue, not a mental one.

The second observation I make is this: I propose a test for those who say the message of the Bible is irrelevant. The test is comprised of two parts, both simplicity personified. First, pick a city, say, Chicago, Tokyo, Gnatty Flat, whatever. With that city firmly fixed in your mind, take the second step in the test: Ask yourself: which one of the Ten Commandments would be irrelevant in your chosen city? Or, differently put, which one of those cities would not be seriously improved by the faithful implementation by the people therein of any single one of the ten?

Seriously. What about, oh, say, #9? That’s not (at first glance!) as tough as some of the others. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor?†Or how about #3, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain?†Or how about that tenth one, the one about greed? But I desist lest the pressure become unbearable. You may choose to love or hate God, love or hate His word, love or hate His people, but you should not insult all people with IQs above 32 by saying that you really believe those commandments are irrelevant, and thus not needed. Will Durant, in a post-script to his and Ariel’s magisterial The Story of Civilization said the most important question facing modern man is this: “Can any civilization survive without the constraints and consolations of religion?†(Emphasis added)

Ponder that sentence: after telling the story of man’s attempts at civilizing himself, from the dawn of history to the present, it all comes down to that issue? The implications of Durant’s sentence are vastly more voluminous than all the previous millions of sentences he wrote recounting the entire human story!

C. S. Lewis was more succinct: “…to be united with that Life (the life of God) in the eternal Sonship of Christ is, strictly speaking, the only thing worth a moment’s consideration.†(Miracles, 185)

Years ago I was working through a knotty problem in biblical prophecy. One author, offering several possible interpretations of the text, concluded with this, in stunningly profound understatement, even though written, one imagines, with a quiet pen: “The event itself will clear up the questions.†It is at least conceivable, from a purely philosophical view, that five minutes after the event of your death the relevance of the message of Christ may be a bit clearer.

Bill Anderson
Grapevine, Texas

Is America Under God’s Judgment?

All sane persons know, instinctively, innately, intuitively, that every human will finally sit down to a table of consequences. We will, we know in the city hall of our souls, that, as Butterfield, the English historian, put it “History teaches us one thing and one thing only: it is finally well with those who do good and bad for those who do evil.” Or as the rustic says, “The chickens will finally come home to roost.” Such consequences, alas, have both individual as well as corporate expressions. I heard Matthew Arnold’s line as a tenth-grader, in my pre-Christian days: “Sin weakens and finally destroys both the individual and the nation.”

Could it be that our beloved America is under God’s judgment?

I am often asked that question in one way or the other.  How would one know, for certain? I was reared by a man, a good and fair man, but a man’s man who—in rearing six boys, knew something instinctively as well: only the clobber method works in some situations. During those memorable thrashings I never once needed to ask, “By the bye, what’s happening here anyway?” The event did not require a metaphysical clarification!

How would we know if God was chastising us? What would the signs be?

In a careful study of our Old Testament we discover that when God’s people were under judgment, certain realities manifested themselves to one degree or the other:

  • open and blasé immoral behavior, spiritual declension (often led by the priests),
  • common violations of the marriage covenant (read, “free sex”),
  • irresolvable economic problems,
  • an inability to guard the nation’s borders,
  • plagues,
  • inept and/or evil political leadership,
  • and often “natural” disasters. Sound familiar?

 

I have for some several years now been convinced (essentially due to specific prayer about the matter) that (a) America is under God’s judgment, (b) She is not under ultimate judgment yet, (c) Millions of faithful Christians are substantively responsible for God with-holding His full judgment (think of righteous deeds  by godly people as creating moral capital for the country), (d) It will not do to say we are not as evil as other countries (who can quantify such things, and, anyway, God does not grade on the curve), (e) America has enjoyed God’s favor for well over two centuries now, but God is not automatically obligated to continue His blessings on us (I am sure that sentence is more shocking to some than if I had just denied the law of gravity), (f) God may well be through with us (may well, as a godly young woman told me recently, “have His belly full of us!”), (g) Our repentance, yours and mine and everybody else’s, is our only salvation, and (h) If our time is running out, Lincoln’s statement when he thought of the correlation (in his mind, inevitable) between our treatment of slaves and the civil war comes to mind:  “…(I)f God wills that it (the war) continues, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’

My place and yours in the matter? Thomas Carlyle, keen student of the French Revolution, when asked who caused it said that every Frenchman who did not do his personal duty to his country was responsible for it. The London Times once ran an ad asking its readers this question: “What is wrong with London?” G. K. Chesterton sent in a pithy reply: “I am!” What his reply lost in verbosity, it gained in relevance!

It really is not what happens in the White House that counts; it’s what happens in your house. And heart. Now.

Finally: how do you and I escape the charge of ultimate hypocrisy for whining about what our illuminati, both in Washington and in Hollywood, cannot or will not do for the betterment of our country, when we refuse to do—maybe even to confess we need it!—what we both know what we should do for her? Now.

Bill Anderson
Grapevine, Texas
February 2014